Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro Cave (Pleistocene of Italy)

Where: Sicily, Italy (38.1° N, 13.5° E: paleocoordinates 38.1° N, 13.5° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; lithology not reported

• As for point A (Supporting Information, Figs S1, S2), where the tortoise remains were found, it consists of a natural niche placed at a depth of 15.4 m, located in the south-east portion of the vast underground environment. The choice of this area for the excavation was also based on the type of finds and their association: human bones, ceramic fragments, lumps of red ochre and obsidian suggest the presence of a prehistoric burial area.

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: anthropogenic

Collection methods: ZCSP: Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro Cave, material deposited at Laboratorio di Antropologia, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche, Chimiche e Farmaceutiche, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy.

Primary reference: P. Valenti, E. Vlachos, C. Kehlmaier, U. Fritz, G. L. Georgalis, A. H. Luján, R. Micciché, L. Sineo, and M. Delfino. 2022. The last of the large-sized tortoises of the Mediterranean islands. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 1-14 [E. Vlachos/E. Vlachos]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 226377: authorized by Evangelos Vlachos, entered by Evangelos Vlachos on 02.07.2022

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Testudines - Testudinidae
Solitudo sicula n. sp.
Solitudo sicula n. sp. Valenti et al. 2022 turtle
Holotype: ZCSP US.0-Q2, an almost complete right femur, missing only part of the major trochanter. Paratypes: ZCSP US.0-Q1, a fragment of a right ischium; ZCSP US.2-Q4, a left pubis; ZCSP US.0-Q3, an ungual phalanx. Due to the uncertainty of the attribution of the four skeletal remains to a single individual (see below), we do not group the ischium, the pubis and the phalanx along with the femur as a single holotype, but we keep them separated.